


Home

by HomeIsSpelledKAZ2Y5



Series: Hands, Eyes, Hearts [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet, Brother Feels, Drabble, Home, Hopeful Ending, Impala Feels, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Series, Season/Series 10 Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4202508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomeIsSpelledKAZ2Y5/pseuds/HomeIsSpelledKAZ2Y5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleventh in my drabble collection. <i>Home is a set of four wheels, and the irrepressible stink of leather and motor oil. ... Home is, above all other things, the first and the last refuge.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

Home is a set of four wheels, and the irrepressible stink of leather and motor oil.

"It smells like a truck stop in here," Sammy mutters. Dean would have to agree with him.

They're slouched in the back seat, Dad at the helm, something on the speakers turned down so low that it's only the vague impression of mullet rock. High end like fizz on soda. Dean makes the same noise through his teeth.

"Knock it off," Dad rumbles. He can hear a toilet flush from three blocks away, Dean would swear it.

Sam takes up the hissing with a defiant air. Dean arches a brow at him. Kid is seven, but he's got attitude. He stands up to John like there isn't a three-foot discrepancy there, like their Dad couldn't just pin him to the ceiling and carve him like a pumpkin.

Dean admires that, but keeps that feeling at a safe distance, one hand on Sammy's shoulder just in case he needs to yank his little brother away from the knife.

He jabs an elbow at Sam instead. Soft flesh through soft cotton, and a little grunt.

Sam pokes him back.

A flurry of smacks and touches erupts in the back seat, and John turns up the music. He'll give them five minutes.

 

Home is black paint, gleaming chrome, and a leather-bound steering wheel.

No crumbs on the seat. Dad is adamant, and Dean is being as careful as he possibly can while maneuvering his plastic fork around in the triangular container. It's not too difficult -- this is really, really good pie.

Sam is poking at the wilting lettuce on his grilled chicken sandwich. The look of remorse and discontent on his young face is pretty funny.

Dean swallows. "It ain't gonna get any greener," he says.

"It's  _brown_ in places," Sam grimaces.

"So pick it off." Dean is chasing the last beautiful clump of filling stuck to perfectly flaky crust. "Toss it on the asphalt."

"I shouldn't have to try this hard to get a decent fucking meal!" Sam explodes. He's twelve. He also picked the absolute worst time to say the word that Dean expressly told him was  _not on your life_ to be said in front of Dad.

 _"Sam,"_  John says from just outside, eminent thunder.

Sam has frozen on the seat.

"Wad up your t-shirt between your teeth," Dean mutters to him, trying not to move his lips. "It won't hurt as bad."

Sam's face is working in a series of gymnastics between sad and infuriated, scared and pissed.

"Don't say anything," Dean pleads with him. "Just take it and come back, and I'll fix you up when we stop."

"He's wearing the clip buckle belt," Sam says wearily, not even trying to hide that he's talking to Dean. "You're going to have to stitch it here." He shifts toward the passenger door as Dad reaches for it, his face a storm. 

"Get the kit," Sam says. "It's on the right side."

Dean knows where it is.

The door opens, and Sam is yanked roughly out.

 

Home is two-hundred thirty-five pounds of torque, and the way that feels.

When Dad is driving, the rattle shake of it travels up through Dean until he thinks he's going to jackhammer right through the ceiling, especially on a stretch of bad road, and since Dad never takes the highway...

When Dean is driving, he feels every inch of that power, wraps his hands around it and settles his body into the couch of it. Tunes himself to its frequency. Driving for Dean is nearly a religious experience. He likes it better than sex, and he  _really_ likes sex.

When Sam is learning to drive --

"Sammy, pull over."

"I can do this."

"Sam, pull the fuck over!"

"I can do this!" Sam shouts, swerving, flooring the gas without fishtailing too badly and tearing them right out of the parking lot Dean was teaching him in, out along the swamp road.

It's dry, so they bump along, and Sam gradually slows to a less  _gonna show you_  speed. The moon lights their way. They can hear the cicadas over the engine, telling them off from the trees.

Dean's heart is still pounding. He doesn't know which of them he feared for more -- Sam, himself, the car, or the pothole.

 

Home is the little things.

When Dean was much younger, he thought that the front air vents were a perfect place to store his Legos. He was utterly dismayed when he couldn't figure out how to get them back. He never told Dad. When the cold swept in and the heater rattled in time to  _Shoot to Thrill_ , Dean played just as confused as his family.

Then, later, they were playing  _Platoon_. Sam's man got mired in the gulch of Ash Tray. His fellows didn't want to leave him behind, but Dean's soldiers were cresting Seat Back Ridge and if Sam's wanted to win the day, then they better skedaddle. Dad never noticed the small, green addition.

And then once, before Dad made Dean fix the flap of carpet that'd pulled up off the floorboard, Sam pulled out a knife. "We ought to make her ours," he said.

Money was tight -- money was always tight, but this time it was bad -- and Dean had been worrying that Dad would sell her. He hadn't told Sam, but his little brother was scary intuitive.

Dean just looked from him to the knife, and back.

"We ought to leave our mark," Sam insisted. "So anybody who has her knows, she was our home first."

 _Home?_  Dean blinked at that. He glanced around at the familiar walls of windows, the cream and black interior, the dash with its sedately glowing dials and the feel of the leather beneath his fingers when he clenched them.

His next blink was fighting tears.

"Yeah," he said, a little hoarse. "Yeah, Sammy, we should."

 

Home is not so much a physical place, but a state of being; the peace that settles over you when you're finally where you belong.

Dean didn't mean to beat the wreck even further toward the point when she could no longer be salvaged. He was just so angry.

He never wanted to have Sam's body in the back seat. It was a long time before he could even look back there again, even if Sam was sitting right next to him.

It wasn't until he opened the door in New Harmony that he even felt afraid to die by hellhound.

When he clawed his way out of his grave and nearly got deafened by celestial tinnitus, his only grudging thought was that he'd have to hotwire a beater instead of slide onto cool, familiar leather and feel that rumble up through his aching bones.

It took him a few times without Sam beside him to realize that his brother was a part of it, too. That the Impala was home, sure, but she was only truly Dean's home when she was Sam's home as well. He doesn't know if Sam feels the same way. They don't talk about things like that. 

But if the feathered menace feels it, and he doesn't even really understand anything around here, then Dean is fairly certain Sam does, too.

 

Home, as comforting as it is, also bears the memory of those left behind or lost.

So precious few have sat in her seats, and all of them have died. Dean keeps her clean, free of any remnants, but he can't salt and purge his own mind. He sees Bobby sitting there. Jo. Cas. Everyone else.

He and Sam smile less and less. He bets Sam sees them, too.

 _There's nothing worse_ , Dean figures one night, when he's three or four sheets to the wind and Sam is snoring softly in the other bed, _than feeling like you're the last person alive in the whole world._

_It's your responsibility to carry the memories._

Dean turns up the bottle and feels, when he hears the slosh, like he might be drowning. It's okay, though. Before his lungs fill with water, all he has to do is say Sam's name.

Sam would never let him drown.

"Would ya, Sammy," he slurs.

Sam makes a noise in his sleep, like "Nuh-uh." It's the most comforting thing Dean's heard all day.

He takes another drink.

_It's your responsibility to hold your head above the water, even when that water runs red._

 

Home bears the blood that family leaves behind.

It's damned difficult to get stains out of black leather. Sam never would have figured.

He's treating it so carefully. He doesn't want to scuff the seat. He doesn't want to leave a mark that Dean could notice. He doesn't want to leave a mark, because Dean might never notice anything again, and whenever Sam sees the scuff he'll remember all over again and it'll be like he never healed at all.

If he ever does.

He can't imagine why Dean's body disappeared. All the times his brother has died, no one showed an interest once the green light faded. Gatsby has left the building, and anyway. Wasn't it his soul they were always after? But after Sam hauled Dean out of the warehouse, brought him back to the bunker and cleaned him up, he laid his brother out on the bed and went to wash up himself. His hands shook when he scrubbed them free of Dean's blood. He couldn't look at himself in the mirror.

 _I'm proud of us_ , Dean said, over and over and over again.

When Sam could bear to look in that room again, maybe to say a few quiet words, Dean's body was gone.

Sam sent out the usual threats. Worked on finding out what happened for three days, without sleep. He's got his suspicions, theories. Whatever.

He's turned up nothing concrete.

Dad's old, green Thermos is full of coffee. Well, Irish coffee. Well, it's mostly whiskey with a little bitter heat. Sam takes another swig of it and doesn't let his gaze linger on the rusty fingerprints he leaves on its side. He turns back to the seat, to the blots and runnels that once belonged to Dean.

He's gonna get all of this up until even his memory can't see it anymore.

Then?

He honestly doesn't know.

He'd take the easy way out, but there are demons he has yet to threaten.

Hope, that this world and the next have yet to quell.

Sam has lived most of his life on nothing more than his propensity to hope. He doesn't know whether or not it's ever served him better than Dean's propensity to deny.

Look where both have gotten them, now.

 

Home is, above all other things, the first and the last refuge.

"Dean?" Sam yells to be heard over the roar of dust and black smoke. "You should have done it."

"Not on your fucking life," Dean roars back. His hand finds Sam's on the seat, both of them clutching in the mutual fear they'd never speak aloud.

"What if this is the end?" Sam presses.

So suddenly that their ears pop, the noise and tumult outside the car ceases. It's still a swirling morass of living smoke instead of clean air, but they can hear themselves think.

Dean's eyes glitter in the semi-dark.

"How many times have we thought it was the end?" he says, his rough voice a comfort in the stillness. "It ain't. We're still here. Baby's still here." He thumps her dash. "Even if the world goes, we've still got her."

Sam nods. "Yeah." Settling back in the seat, he absently runs his thumb over the callus on the side of his brother's hand. "Y'know?"

"Hmm?"

"It's good to be home."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://www.wattpad.com/141221801-hands-eyes-hearts-a-collection-of-supernatural).
> 
> Please leave kudos if you ♥ it.


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